Richard Stallman's Abuse of the Word “Freedom”

Richard Stallman, his use of “free” in his concept of Free Software
and Free Software Foundation, is a abuse of English. I do not know he
did this with the intent to ride the ambiguity for the marketing
benefit of the catcher word “free”, or innocently due to the fuzziness
of English. In any case, from the numerous talks and lectures he gave,
it is apparent he is abusing the concept of freedom to gain
supporters.

Non-free, is misleading term for proprietary software. People
started to refer to proprietary as non-free, because Richard Stallman
abuses the words “free” and “freedom”, and as a consequence, his
followers started to call other software that are not compatible with
his ideal, as “non-free”.

Despite the fact that the word “free” does not refer to price, but
proprietary software isn't necessarily restraining freedom. In fact,
the issue of whether source code is non-public has little to do with
the concept of liberty. Richard Stallman's vision of software is
“free”, in the sense that coder community can freely look at the
source code and make use of it. That sense of “free” is a point of
view. As a contrast, proprietary software is also free, in the sense
that entrepreneurs and businesses can freely develop and sell their
software without worrying about some coder making copies with minor or
no changes and put it out free of charge that destroys the benefits
for their initiative. (this is why, there are little innovation in
Open Source software in comparison to commercial software.)
〔➤ Software Freedom is Free Speech or Free Beer?〕

Please do not use the word “free” like he want you to. When referring to his philosophy of software licensing, please say “open source”, or “FSF Ideal Software”.

Don't say “non-free” to refer to commercial or proprietary software
that are disliked by FSF. Simply just say software, or commercial
software, or non-FSF ideal software.

For those of you FSF or Open Source fanatics who are illiterate of the pertinent social sciences, i recommend:

• Basic Economics: A Common Sense Guide to the Economy By Thomas Sowell.
amazon

I read the first edition in the dot com are ≈2000, alone with
other books that helped me understand stocks and related financial
things. I've read Thomas's book 2 more times in the early 2000s.
〔➤ Reading Notes on Basic Economics〕

Another interesting book by Sowell is: A Conflict of Visions: Ideological Origins of Political Struggles By Thomas Sowell. amazon. It'll teach you something about FSF ideals.